Creativity: #1 Skill of 21st Century

I'm taking a break in South Florida, on the beach surrounded by the scariest looking Portuguese men-of-war I've ever seen (see below), sampling an eclectic variety of new songs thanks to downloads from Paste Magazine streaming from my ear buds. Paste offers about 20 new songs a month from up and coming musicians for an incredibly low price. I never know what kind of song will emerge from the shuffle, which I particularly enjoy.

I wanted to share a recent article from Psychology Today, once again attesting to creativity as a top 21st century skill--needed by all at every age:

Is Creativity the Number 1 Skill for the 21st Century?
Creativity is the essential skillset for the future by Mark Batey, Ph.D.

Against a backdrop of uncertainty, economic turmoil and unprecedented change a new picture is emerging of the skills and traits for success (and perhaps even simply survival) in the modern era. At the heart of this essential skillset for the future lies... creativity.

A raft of recent research studies demonstrates that creativity is vital from the shopfloor to the boardroom and at the level of the individual to the organization as a whole. What is more... our economic fortunes at a societal level probably rest on creativity too.

{Here are Batey's 7 main themes--to read the full article, click here}:

1 - Creativity and innovation are the number 1 strategic priorities for organizations the world over.

2 - Creativity is part of all our day jobs

3 - Organizational profitability rests on individual creativity

4 - Creative teams perform better and are more efficient

5 - Creative organizations are more profitable

6. Creative Leadership is fundamental

7. Successful economies and societies will need to be creative

What Happened to my CFO?

George Bickerstaff has published another segment in TGL's series of business articles for today's leaders.  As a former CFO himself, George shares his insights on what makes a successful CFO.

The Chief Financial Officer, often called the CFO, is a key position within any organization. As the corporate officer ultimately responsible for all the money in a company, the CFO is integral to the success of a corporation. It is imperative that CFOs have the requisite training, experience, and inherent skills necessary for effective high-level money management. This article will discuss this position in depth and will explain how to create a world-class CFO.  To read the article in its entirety or to download it click here.

The Groupon Phenomenon

Everyone is talking about Groupon, the Chicago-based start-up that has somehow taken an old idea of clipping coupons and leveraged into a company that has become the unrivalled new paragon of business innovation. Innovation fandom began quickly, with Groupon winning a Chicago innovation award in late 2009 when it was less than a year old and expanding throughout the country so meteorically and so successfully that Fast Company magazine has just selected it as the No. 5 "most innovative company" in the world. Yes, in the world. The magazine describes Groupon as "a savior for small businesses" and "the most exciting thing to happen to retail since eBay."

This week Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has selected Groupon co-founder Brad Keywell to be part of a new Innovation Council, dedicated to find creative ways to boost the economy. Primary founder Andrew Mason (left) has become the poster boy for innovation, quoted often, pictured playfully and suddenly a high priest of all that's creative.

Groupon is everywhere, not just in my inbox every morning and beeping me with its latest update thanks to an app on my smartphone (yes, I'm a user), but referred to constantly throughout the culture. Last night on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart examined Obama's latest budget cutting attempts: "From now on when we buy office supplies," he mock-quoted the President, "we will join up with Canada and Mexico to look for deals on Groupon." The viral rise of copycat companies has reached absurdity levels, not just limited to those offering local deals of the day. "It's like Groupon, but with a twist," explains WeedMaps founder Justin Hartfield, offering deals, I kid you not, on medical marijuana. Check it out, as reported in Fast Company. National articles about Groupon are written everyday, including this one in this week's Time magazine.

The hype indicates how desperate we are here in Chicago and in our country to embrace, understand and promote innovation. Groupon has become the start-up model of the kind of innovation political and business leaders refer to: a creative idea with real value, in this case leading to impressive money-making, job creation and investment hunger so great that Groupon recently resisted Google's attempt to buy it for $6 billion. Yes, $6 billion for a company barely two years old.

Groupon does have a creative business model, which is primarily based on getting a large group of people to buy a discounted voucher (You have to pay for it, more like a gift certificate than a coupon from the paper) to various restaurants and local attractions. But there is some real question about its future--given that many businesses suffer real losses and have other problems. Check out this Chicago PBS television segment airing yesterday, entitled "Losing money with Groupon," which describes some issues. As customers, we like the deals but many of us are already at a saturation point, annoyed by expiration dates and too many offers we can't keep up with. So to call it one of the most innovative companies in the world seems a bit hasty.



I have found Groupon's technology to be top-notch, which is no small secret to its success. But overall I do have to give it real credit for brimming with creativity, from the wacky improvised descriptions of offers to its attempts to take risks and playfully try new things. Groupon originally came out of an altruistic attempt to bring people together for social causes and according to founder Mason, "There was a kind of freedom that came with not caring if it failed." And fail it has, included the offensive Superbowl ad campaign (video above or click here) which pissed a lot of people off and Mason later apologized for.

From its visuals to its relationships with customers and companies, Groupon embraces creativity in a way that bodes ongoing success. It's playful, snappy and engaging, and working on personalizing the experience more and more. And Mason, who acknowledges his own and the company's immaturity on different levels, seems to have the right attitude for innovation going forward. "One of the challenges of innovation is figuring out how to wipe your mind clean about what you should be doing at any given moment," he says, "and not having a religious attachment to what's gotten you there thus far."

The Global Leaders Networking is Coming to Los Angeles

The Global Leaders (TGL) brings together today’s leaders in business, government, education and philanthropy to network with purpose.  On Wednesday, May 11^th, TGL brings their exclusive networking activities to the Los Angeles Athletic Club from 6p to 9p.

Mingle, relax and enjoy an evening of cocktails and hors d’oeuvres as you meet your peers and colleagues from the leading businesses, institutions and organizations in the greater Los Angeles area.  This special event is sponsored by The Los Angeles Consulting Group

Special guest speaker is Carol Bradford, Senior Counsel to and Charitable Advisor at the California Community Foundation (CCF), a nonprofit organization serving the communities of Los Angeles since 1915. Ms. Bradford will share with the crowd her thoughts about how innovation fulfills a critical need for today’s leaders.  Read Ms. Bradford’s complete biography at the end of this post.

Register today and discover how TGL networking events provide value before, during and after the event.  Utilizing their proprietary networking platform, each participant upon registering for the event is invited to join an exclusive private group on www.tgleaders.com that has been set up especially for the networking event.  Only those who register for the event will have access to the group, allowing them to begin reaching out to fellow participants immediately and to continue networking long after the evening activities are over. 

Carol Bradford Biography 

Carol Bradford is Senior Counsel to and Charitable Advisor at the California Community Foundation (CCF), a nonprofit organization serving the communities of Los Angeles since 1915 through philanthropy and civic engagement initiatives in areas such as arts, education, health care, housing, and human development.  In her dual role, she provides internal counsel on legal matters and external assistance to professional legal advisors and wealth managers on the establishment of charitable funds and foundations for their clients, gifting and liquidation of complex assets, and grant making to nonprofit organizations.   

Bradford began her professional career as a lawyer in Los Angeles, first with Quinn Emanuel and then with Steptoe & Johnson.  She subsequently specialized in business litigation at a local banking concern, Coast Federal Bank, before joining CCF in 2001.  For a time, Bradford also served as Philanthropic Services Officer at the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County. 

Bradford is a member of the State Bar of California and the Los Angeles County Bar Association.  She serves as Chair of the Exempt Organizations Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association's Taxation Section, and Vice Chair & Treasurer for the Estate Counselors Forum of Los Angeles.  She is a former board member for the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning of Greater Los Angeles.  Bradford is active in several local professional women’s organizations, including Broads Circle and Step Up Women’s Network.  She is a frequent speaker on legal and tax issues surrounding complex charitable giving as well as on the business of community foundations.

Bradford holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University, Fullerton, and a law degree from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.  Her past charitable board affiliations include the Monterey County Victim-Offender Reconciliation Program, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale.  An accomplished choral singer who has sung with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the Carmel Bach.  Festival Chorus, she is a voting member of the Recording Academy (Grammy®). 

Sponsors for this event include the Los Angeles Consulting Group (LACG).
LACG is a full service consulting firm that offers management, development and marketing services to financial and professional service firms and to the low-middle and middle markets.

How do we Clear so that we can Create?

Perhaps like me, you are constantly working to clear--your physical space, your head, your email inbox, your to-do list--so that you have an uncluttered springboard from which to leap creatively forward. I call it trying to get current. It's hard to invent something new when you feel cluttered with unfinished business. It's hard to drive if you haven't scraped that ice off your windshield.

But the snow keeps falling, the digital distractions (or are they now requirements?) beckon and I find myself creating less while engaging in the sisyphean pursuit of always trying to get current. Are you too waiting for your to-do list to be handled before you finally move forward with the things you've been wanting to do? What to do if you want to be a creator and not just a clearing-upper?

Time magazine humorist Joel Stein recently captured this dilemma well, as he examined the great 21st century contributor to our never-can-clear state--the digital mess--in a column called the Mess Manifesto:

In the past few years I've become a compulsive organizer...I have been sucked into hours of deleting pictures on iPhoto, then organizing the rest into little titled folders...I've lost days fiddling with the bottom of my Netflix queue, which is the section that should be labeled 'movies I will never see.' I could have read a Tolstoy novel in the time I've spent managing my songs on iTunes, putting old e-mails into folders, watching TV shows I don't really care about just to get them off my DVR and moving the downloaded Tolstoy novel from my computer to my iPhone and then to my iPad.
We are all OCD now. We do these things not just because digital filing gives us the satisfaction of cleaning without the unpleasant feeling of getting up from our chairs. It's because we're constantly confronting the onslaught of information, and our brains are trying to make patterns out of the randomness.

In order to create something new, we need to move out of our OCD state and clear the mental decks in some way. In the classic creative process model, new insight (the "Aha!") is preceded by a period "preparation" and "incubation"--we need to first prepare our mind for a new solution and then let it stew for a bit before an answer will appear. But I'm not sure we do good stewing when our minds are so overloaded. It's usually during an incubation period of uncluttering--the most common being in the shower or while driving--that a great insight comes to us.

In more psychological and spiritual circles, the process of change leading to authentic creativity might be said to follow this process: 1. Clearing, during which you cast out blocks and worries that are keeping you stuck, 2. Connecting, during which you get in touch more deeply with your genuine wishes, desires and passion, and 3. Creating, during which you activate those desires in a form of expression.

Okay. But that doesn't help if we get stuck in the constantly clearing mode, does it? Stein, though, does offer us a possible solution. The subtitle for his column: "Why we need to stop worrying and learn to love digital disorder."

We need a digital Zoloft, something that will force us to allow messiness into our digital lives...We need an app--I'm calling it 1-Year-Old Boy--that grabs stuff out of our folders and throws it around, possibly while laughing, possibly while pooping, probably both. It will hide a few episodes of 30 Rock from us when we have more than five to watch, and it will hide them in its mouth. And it will remind us that anarchy is the best way to actually enjoy things: it's the newness of watching a movie we didn't know about, of hearing a song we didn't set up on a mix, of seeing a cat do something stupid right in front of us instead of on YouTube.

Ahh. I think there is something here--more than just tongue in cheek. Let me leave you with some questions: Can you find a way to clear your mind despite the messiness, despite the unfiled emails and unfinished business? Can you accept the clutter in such a way so that it can be ignored at certain times and you can feel clear and able to move on to new pursuits? Can you dare to insert creative time during your day, periods where you are able to instantly melt the ice that you thought needed to be chipped first simply by deciding so?

Can we learn to love the disorder and overload so that we can ignore it and create anyway?

TGL Exchange = Smart Business

TGL Exchange^TM = Smart Business.  This exciting new feature on The Global Leaders is designed to facilitate business development for our members.  TGL Exchange^TM brings together both sides of the equation for a successful business endeavor:  Opportunity (TGL Deal) and Money (TGL Investment Fund).

Businesses can post their current opportunities; i.e. selling a business, seeking a joint venture partner, licensing a new product line or finding people to collaborate with on a special initiative through TGL Deals.

Investors can post the specific types of opportunities, sectors, countries, etc. that they are interested in investing in thru the TGL Investment Funds…read more

An Innovation Blizzard hits the U.S.?

As a blizzard swirls outside my window here in Chicago, I wanted to reflect on Obama's State of the Union speech last week, during which he unleashed his own storm for innovation. "The first step in winning the future is encouraging American innovation," he hailed. Speaking of our response to Sputnik a generation ago, he said, "We didn't just surpass the Soviets; we unleashed a wave of innovation that created new industries and millions of new jobs." He summarized his theme of "winning the future" through innovation in his weekly address video (below or click here if you don't see the video) by "out-innovating, out-educating and out-building our competitors."

Now, I'm not a big fan of "we must win" (and others must be crushed in defeat) language that is quite popular in business world these days, but it's good to see Obama thunder about innovation, which he hasn't dramatically done since 2009. This innovation imperative is exactly what has to be center stage right now. And because innovation does not just come from tax breaks or federal investment--but creativity throughout a culture--I particularly enjoy him saying, "What America does better than anyone else is spark the creativity and imagination of our people."


But is it true? Are we the best at sparking the creativity and imagination of our people today? Anand Giridharadas, whose book India Calling examines emerging India, recently made the point that America's culture, compared to India, is more destructive than creative:

When we talk about India and China in this country, we talk about an economic threat….[but] I think the real thing America needs to think about is that these countries pose a challenge of culture and spirit”…Here in America “we are all pulling each other down, we’re creating a culture of destruction…India and China, for all of the work that lies ahead for them, are starting to create cultures of hope and cultures of creation, where there is a consensus on saying, ‘How do we create something extraordinary’; we need to be worried not about an economic threat but the threat of that spirit in about two and half billion people.”

He may have a point, but there are plenty of ways that we can nurture a more creative spirit, and Obama's leadership can make a difference, in both business and education. But we also need new leaders to emerge, and a few fascinating signs have recently surfaced from members of our creative industries--those advertising, marketing and branding innovators who could play a greater role in raising the creative IQ of the nation. February's Harper's magazine challenged advertising leaders to reinvent Uncle Sam's debilitating reputation by creating a Superbowl-style ad campaign. How could we reframe government in a way that would inspire possibilities and positive change? Pick up a copy (or creatively scour the Internet) and see what they came up with. And check out this new initiative called No Right Brain Left Behind, supported by leaders in creative fields, to foster more creativity in education. No Right Brain Left Behind describes itself as "a speed innovation challenge, calling on the creative industries to concept ideas that can help the creativity crisis happening in U.S. schools today." Can't wait to see what they come up with.